Headlines

John Sides

Were Obama’s early ads really a gamechanger?

Ms. Vavreck and I tracked several qualities relevant to this message, with arguably the most relevant being whether Mr. Romney “cares about people like me.” Here is the trend in that indicator throughout the campaign…

What this graph shows is fairly remarkable, given this narrative about the Obama campaign “defining” Mr. Romney. Obama’s advantage on this indicator — an advantage Democratic presidential candidates have traditionally had — was in place in January 2012 and never shifted much during the entire campaign. When Ms. Vavreck and I looked more closely at the trend in battleground states, we saw little notable movement in the spring and summer.

So perhaps “front-loading” the ads, as Mr. Axelrod described it on Politico.com, wasn’t as effective as many believe.

Blowback

Note from Hot Air management: This section is for comments from Hot Air's community of registered readers. Please don't assume that Hot Air management agrees with or otherwise endorses any particular comment just because we let it stand. A reminder: Anyone who fails to comply with our terms of use may lose their posting privilege.

The ads that caused the most problems were the ads by Newt Gingrich, telling people that he was greedy, stole, and hid money in the Carribean. Obama piled onto that in some of those states. And Santorum helped Obama in the rust belt states saying that Romney does not understand “people like us” meaning himself…in another life, when he wasn’t master of a Virginia estate, which he pretended was not the case, saying he preferred Pittsburg and the rust belt.

No, those ads were not the clincher. The busloads of Obama Phone customers, waiting for their rides to the polls are what made the squeaky difference. The community organizing to get not Likely Voters to vote, or give an absentee vote. When you see rev. Jackson saying that long lines at the polls are a form of disenfranchisment, he means they can not get them in and out fast enough to make up for the likely voters that are standing there waiting to vote on conservative principals, who got there on their own and were self motivated to vote.

On our side are individualists who do not think collectively about voting, we think, how sad, but if someone wants to stay home on election day because the candidate is not perfect, or they don’t have an identity relationship, oh well. We don’t harrass them. The Obama voters get a free phone, and they get a call on that phone when the bus is coming. Union organizers go around…in Boston this happened, knocking on doors making people vote correctly…in this instance, for Ms. Warren, not Sen. Brown.

That is the aspect to concentrate on. Turns out in Ohio, that Romney lost by under 1% after all the absentee and military ballots were counted. I don’t KNOW any conservatives that did not go out to vote, and wonder if those stories are really true, I doubt it. But if you knew someone, how would you motivate them to the polls when they want to sit home and let Obama win. It is my opinion that they really wanted Obama, they just did not want to tell you.

Romney’s campaign was based on the idea that not losing was more important than winning. He never made effective attacks on Obama, while simultaneously taking a skeptical base for granted. It was a recipe for failure.

But if you knew someone, how would you motivate them to the polls when they want to sit home and let Obama win.
Fleuries on December 30, 2012 at 2:07 PM

I could have gotten my family out if I were motivated to put the effort into doing so. I have done it in the past to great effect. They in general do not see any difference between the parties. My pushing them to get out and vote in 2004 for Bush really damaged my credibility with them. They voted for him, but after the housing crash and his subsidizing of wall street, they really are not much in the mood to listen to me. I got about 15 out of the potential 33 to vote in 2008, when I myself stayed home. I pushed them to vote for McCain due to Sarah Palin. She would have been a great follow on President. In Iowa I got 4 to actually go to the caucuses and put their word in for Michelle Bachmann. After the primary I just kept my mouth shut.

If that is the case, then they voted against their own best interest. Romney offered a more realistic mooching society than Obama. Romney was by far the one offering to buy votes with other peoples slave labor.

Not to worry the 2016 attack ads will be out in about 12 months and no one would have declared they are running. Just blanket ads saying the faceless Republican will push grandma off a cliff, make them eat dog food and put toxins in baby bottles.

Republicans seem steadfastly unwilling to learn the lesson of the Clinton “war room”: you let nothing go by unchallenged and in the process, you make sure to put your opponent on the defensive. Republican silence gave us the summer of Cindy Sheehan. And this year, a summer of silence contributed mightily to a second term by that fool.

No doubt the ads by Newt didn’t help. But the RNC and PACs let an entire summer go by, while that fool’s campaign carpet-bombed Ohio, Virginia, and Florida. Before Republicans find themselves at this sort of “calendar disadvantage” again, they need to figure out how to respond.

We were told — by all sorts of groups — that we were far exceeding 2008’s contact and turnout plans. We know what happened to that. It is still not clear why that happened. You can win independents by double digits (in 5 of 8 of the swing states), but if you don’t turn out enough of them and your own base….well…And too many people thought Romney didn’t care about the average person. You simply cannot wait till the end of August to tell folks what a great, compassionate, charitable, decent candidate you’ve picked.

The entire electoral process favours the people who, and topics which, cause people to get emotionally involved.

The agenda of the political discussion is not set by people who are basically content and who wish to debate the nuances of economic policy, or the strategic merits of various foreign polcies.

The agenda is set by the aggrieved, the angst-ridden, the boorish, the immature, the mal-contented. The process favours the doom-monger, the sh!t-stirrer, the bolshy and the rabble-rouser.

The media give attention to whoever gives them reason to get glitter-mouthed. Satisfied and contented people are dull news, whereas bitter, angry and aggressive people let journalists feel their existence is justified.

Politics is a riot conducted by public discourse, and in a riot bystanders and polite people get pushed aside or trampled underfoot.

Attack. Attack politely and rationally, but attack.

Conservatives, by definition and nature, tend to avoid conflict until absolutely forced to defend themselves; this is a losing strategy (as ought o be obvious given the political histories of the UK and USA in the past 50 years). Instead we must go on the offensive and take the battle to the opponents.

Define the debate. Do not let the leftist, sentimentalist, irrational view of the world go unchallenged. Force the opposition to go on the defensive.

Until western conservatives around the world understand this, the “western world” will continue to disintegrate as “radicals” and “progressives” continue to undermine its foundations, and turn their twisted opinions into laws to outlaw objection.

The process has been going on for over a century. It is way past time conservatives got a clue.